Occasional paper prepared for the



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History in

Years 1 to 10

Studies of Society and Environment

Key Learning Area




Occasional paper prepared for the

Queensland School Curriculum Council

by
Brian Hoepper, Professional Studies, QUT

Max Quanchi, School of Humanities and Social Science, QUT
on behalf of the

Queensland History Teachers’ Association




CONTENTS



  1. What is History?

  2. How the teaching and learning of History has changed

  3. History - linking with the Years 1 to 10 SOSE syllabus

  4. Suggested curriculum themes and topics

  5. Resources



1. What is History ?


    1. The current state of the discipline

The discipline of History as it appears today on the shelves of bookshops and in the subjects taught in schools and universities is unrecognisable against the "History" of twenty years ago. This rapid transformation is reflected in the contents of the discipline’s major journal, Australian Historical Studies.1 Once dominated by scholarly, footnoted articles and book reviews, in recent years Australian Historical Studies has added sections which analyse exhibitions, military and community celebrations, historical sites, a "Reflections" section on the work of historians and a "Debate" forum which allows historians to argue the merits of previously published articles. A blurring of discipline lines has occurred as historical methodologies and approaches drift into (or are captured by) cultural and literary studies, law, the sciences and social sciences. Not only has History as a discipline been redefined, but its underpinning ideological and theoretical structure and the nature of its scrutiny of the minutiae of past events has also been challenged.


In academia, the move is away from an objective, descriptive narrative and a past which can be known towards histories which are reflective, socially critical and self-interrogating. In the public domain, it is paralleled by a surge of interest in anything vaguely historical. The Australian community continues to demonstrate a popular interest in the past, not in History as a discipline, but History as an entertaining window on the past. National competitions, commemorations of special events, historic homes, heritage walks, antiques, vintage cars, History theme parks, historical drama, television documentaries and historical movies are increasingly entertaining and informing Australians about what it was like in the old days.
In primary and secondary schools, both trends are discernible. History is widely seen as a curriculum content area which promotes knowledge about the past – a selection of truths, insights, facts and collective memories about important events and people. This engagement with the past is enjoyed through reading, excursions, role play, dress-ups, debates, posters and projects. But there is also a trend towards a concept of the past as a contested space and a record of events that needs interrogation. The Queensland History Teachers’ Association (QHTA) has actively promoted this investigative, socially critical approach in secondary schools. Was Caroline Chisholm really a friend of female immigrants? Was Ned Kelly really struggling against the injustice suffered by poor rural farmers? Was Breaker Morant really a victim of British military capitalism? Chisholm, Kelly and Morant are fascinating characters from our past and their lives are worth studying and proclaiming – but the stories we have told about them – at the time and since - also need scrutinising.
1.2 Can we know the way it really was?
In 1998 a special issue of Australian Historical Studies was devoted to "The Fifties". It sought to "fill in the spaces between the broad brushstrokes of images circulating in contemporary discourse"2 and to challenge the certainty experienced by those at the time, and the certainty with which historians, then and now, described the era. What were the 1950s and 1960s really like? In earlier times and other locations, what was convictism, the Boer War, the “Home Front” and the “Reds-under-beds” era really like? Other than dates, the names of people, locations and the broad sequence of events - which Historians usually agree on – the special issue of Australian Historical Studies argued that our previous descriptions of the 1950s were based on a false understanding of what took place. This assertion is one typical of a dynamic and competitive discipline. Historians are busy attacking or defending the propositions that it is possible to know what really happened (the truth). Most historians now agree that there are still undiscovered silences and contrary interpretations, and that the past is only known through the prism of our present and personal lens.
1.3 Moving towards a different History
The old History with its description of progress, order, authority, great men and great events, cause and effect, chronology, enduring traditions and admiration for antiquity is now challenged by a different History. The new History uncovers ruptures, abnormalities, disorder, discontinuities, disjunctions and the lost voices of the past and insists that the way we tell stories about the past can depend on who we speak to in the present. The discipline of History has become a pastiche (of stories) and bricolage (of theories) 3.
Today, the discipline of History has been refashioned by new concepts, themes, and technologies. There are debates about appropriate content and methodologies. New sub-fields continue to emerge as historians engage with Gender, Indigenous Australia, Public History, Postcolonialism, Environmentalism, Globalisation, Memory, Photography, Consciousness, and others. This has led to a History which is being told by academics, amateur historians, museum and gallery curators, choreographers, artists, television documentary makers, radio programmers and Hollywood-style film-makers. History has been replaced by histories.
Rather than "The History of ....", posing as an incontestable, true account of the past, what we have now are contested domains, contrasting views and a range of probable and improbable guesses. Jocelyn Linnekin concluded that "as contending voices and points of view proliferate, History becomes not so much a text as an ongoing debate".4 There are now no absolutes in the discipline of History, only relentless introspection, and an array of interpretations and speaking positions. History and Studies of Society and Environment (SOSE) teachers now ask what happened, but also ask who owns the story, why was it told this way and what conflicts of interest have shaped different versions of the story over time.
1.4 SOSE and the old and the new History
The German writer Nietzsche’s three categories neatly summarise much of what History can do in a SOSE curriculum. The SOSE initiative allows schools to develop in students a pride in the past - monumental History – the recording of progress, action and struggle. It also allows students to develop an appreciation of material culture from the old days - antiquarian History – the conserving of relics and revering the past. Finally, it allows students to question earlier versions of the past - critical History – to probe injustices and to envision a better life.
Nietzsche’s three categories are somewhat obscured today because of the extensive borrowing that has taken place between disciplines within the humanities and externally with the social sciences and other disciplines. This borrowing is so prevalent that some Historians see the discipline’s boundary as increasingly and dangerously blurred.5 In schools it is also argued that History, if subsumed under the SOSE banner, will lose its distinctive disciplinary identity. The QHTA argues that the opposite is the case and that History as a discipline actually underpins and informs a SOSE approach, and that through classroom application of historical processes, the concepts and skills of nearly all the SOSE learning outcomes can be met.
The SOSE initiative allows primary and secondary schools to add a critical edge to celebratory colonial narratives of powerful, authority figures, masters and rulers. It offers opportunities to move towards more localised story telling about ordinary people, community pioneers, forebears, family and next door neighbours. The SOSE initiative also allows a move to the vernacular, and away from Eurocentric theories and models towards respect for traditional knowledge and indigenous ways of recording and describing the past.
At the primary and secondary school level, students still have the chance to enjoy antiquarian, commemorative, celebratory and narrative History. But students also should have the chance to develop skills of critical reflection, the questioning of evidence and the chance to develop practical ways of challenging dominant paradigms and hegemonic discourses. By critically examining the past presented in school textbooks, Internet sites and video documentaries, students can move beyond the uncritical acceptance of what is purported to have happened in the past. They can become sensitive to the ways that versions of the past are constructed, and how those constructions are used and sometimes abused to legitimise power and action.
Students can question what is presented to them under the guise of "History" or "the past". They can seek out local, family and non-material evidence that will support (or challenge) popular versions of the past. They can present mini-histories, time lines, role plays, speeches, dramas, essays, historical maps and posters which offer to their peers and local communities, a personal and alternative view of their own past.
Knowledge of the past is a powerful tool in the present. Knowing your own and others’ pasts is empowering. It invites action, it legitimises action and it creates active citizens. History, as a key element of a SOSE curriculum, can do this for school students.



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